So the teabaggers hate big gummint?

This week is not the first time we've heard Republicans screeching about big gummint. Actually, for the last thirty years, Republican politicians have been sucking from the public teat like gluttons, soaking up hundreds of billions in pork, unnecessary military bases, weapon systems that don't work, and other governmenta gravy -- all while screaming about those damn tax-and-spend Democrats. In fact, today Republican governors like Palin, Sanford and Jindal have been screwing themselves into the ground, trying to figure out a way to condemn the stimulus package....while also scarfing up the stimulus money.

No man was more effective in turn this argument into a pathetic joke, than Fritz Hollings. Let him tell the story of the Korea vet:

The fellow was a Korean War veteran who went to college on the GI Bill.

He bought his house with an FHA loan.

His kids were born in a VA hospital.

He started a business with an SBA loan.

He got water from the TVA and then from a project funded by the EPA.

The man’s children participated in the school lunch program and went to college on government-guaranteed student loans.

His parents’ farm got its electricity from the REA and had its soil tested by the USDA.

His father’s life was saved by a drug developed by the NIH, and the family was saved from financial ruin by Medicare.

When the man's house was damaged by floods, he drove on the interstate to an Amtrak station and took a train to Washington to apply for disaster relief.

Then one day, he got angry about taxes and federal spending and wrote a letter to his congressman demanding that the government get off his back.


Hollings was too much of the southern gentleman to tell the Republicans to SFTU, but he made the point pretty obvious.